Buenos Aires: San Telmo and La Boca

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

We had SUCH a good time on our trip to Argentina. It was the perfect mix of relaxing and adventurous, city and rural. We could have crammed in more site-seeing but in the end we were glad we took the time to marinate in Buenos Aires instead of rushing around trying to see everything. Before I say anything more, if you are going to Argentina, you HAVE to pay a reciprocity fee before you can enter the country and have proof of it for your flight. I won't get into the details but this is fairly new and not clear in anything we read and we were SOOO close to missing our flight because of it.

Anyway....our trip was basically divided into three parts. We started in the south part of Buenos Aires, San Telmo, then flew two hours north to Igauzu Falls, then came back and spent the end of our trip in the north Buenos Aires neighborhood of Palermo. I'm going to do three posts with some photos, links and stories from our trip.

Soooo, starting off, San Telmo and La Boca! We started out in the more "gritty" and historic part of town traditionally known for antiquing that is currently undergoing a bit of a revival. It is filled with old (somewhat decaying) architecture, cobblestone streets, quirky/local shops, and unique restaurants. We stayed at a fun little boutique hotel called Mansion Vitraux, the highlight of which was the rooftop pool. It was fun to be in a modern hotel/rooftop in the midst of a more "antique" part of town.

We spent most of our time in Buenos Aires just wandering around looking in shops and cathedrals, navigating our way based on the restaurants and bars we wanted to try out. It was lovely.

Just south of San Telmos is the tourist zone of brightly colored houses and buildings called La Boca. We'd heard that it can be overrun with tourists which it was, but it didn't take away from the whimsy of the neighborhood and we stumbled on a wonderful little museum with a modern little rooftop cafe.

The Pope (El Papa) is from Buenos Aires and a HUGE deal right now.

The streets of La Boca

Lunch in La Boca

A few of the culinary highlights included Aramburu Bis where we had our favorite meal of the whole trip on Valentine's Day, fabulous restaurant with a locally famous chef. Also, we loved this little vegetarian cafe, this historic bar, and eating a lot of street food (mostly empanadas and choripan sandwiches, pictured below).

PROA Museum Exhibit

Afternoon wine in San Telmo

One of the highlights of San Telmo is the AMAZING 15 block outdoor market. We had planned to spend a couple of hours there and ended up walking around the whole day. The streets were lined with artisan stalls and incredible street performers as seen above.

Patrick blissing out over his chorpian sandwich (chorizo sausage etc.)